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News Organizations Seek to Unseal Bonds Juror Questionnaires

Several major news organizations filed a motion Thursday asking a judge to unseal the completed juror questionnaires in the Barry Bonds perjury trial, which is scheduled to begin Monday.

“We believe they are a matter of public record, and they would significantly help the public and the press understand the voir dire process as it happens,” said Duffy Carolan, a lawyer for the news organizations.

The motion was filed on behalf of The Associated Press; The New York Times; The Los Angeles Times; Sports Illustrated; ESPN; the Hearst Corporation, which owns The San Francisco Chronicle; and MediaNews Group, which owns several newspapers in Northern California.

Judge Susan Illston of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California has agreed to hear arguments on the matter before another hearing on the Bonds case. That hearing will not be held Friday but may be heard as early as Monday. Bonds faces charges that he made false statements before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative in 2003. Because of Bonds’s celebrity and the widespread news media coverage of the Balco investigation, jury selection is expected to be a key factor in the trial.

Bonds remains popular among many San Francisco Giants fans, and the news media have closely covered every development in his criminal case. That included the release earlier this month of several pieces of evidence that would seem to suggest that Bonds used performance-enhancing drugs.

Illston ruled last week that she planned to exclude much of the evidence because it could not be authenticated by anyone other than Greg Anderson, a former trainer for Bonds who has refused to testify.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page B12 of the New York edition with the headline: News Media Seek to View Jury Responses. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe